Seldom has a movie delineated adult melancholy or adolescent anxiety with such acute tenderness as in Christine Jeffs' "Rain", a film from New Zealand based on Kirsty Gunn's 1994 debut novel. This is a film where, on one level, little happens. Yet Jeffs' camera is alert to the subtlest nuances of language, gesture and behavior. "Rain" is a master work in miniature, an unsentimental yet not unsympathetic portrait of a family falling apart in slow motion.
"Rain" could evolve into a must-see in North American art houses. Its major impediment is the unfortunate number of films, both past and present, with the exact same title. While "Rain" is based on a novel by the same name, filmmakers should take more care to select distinctive titles that will eliminate audience confusion.
Anyway, this "Rain" takes place in 1972 on a languid, sparsely populated bay on the east coast of New Zealand, where a family rents a seaside cottage for the long, hot summer. While the film's narrator is the family's 13-year-old daughter Janey (Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki), in the early throes of exploring the reach and strength of her sexuality, the point of view is not entirely hers.
Jeffs, who adapted Gunn's story, observes things Janey cannot always see or fully understand: the dissolution of her parents' marriage into booze and late-night parties, her mom's (Sarah Peirse) boredom and her dad's (Alistair Browning) inadequacy in dealing with this and, finally, her mom's attraction to a drifter photographer (Marton Csokas) who invites the family to go fishing on his boat.
Janey's closest and constant companion is her kid brother Jim (Aaron Murphy), a wee lad to whom life at the beach is still fun and games. As one indolent day turns into a boozy night followed by another indolent day with hangovers for the adults and restlessness for the children, life slowly oozes out of the family's core. It's almost imperceptible, but it's there, mostly unspoken, and no one knows how to fix the leak.
This is a film of atmosphere and ominous foreboding. You're never certain where the film is going, which is a refreshing change from most movies, whose road maps are clearly marked in advance.
It is Janey's sexuality that drives the movie. Dismissive of a boy her own age, who comes by to court her in a manner that is almost old-fashioned, she becomes, in a sense, her mom's rival for the affections of the nonchalant drifter. When the film finally reaches its climax, the sense of loss of innocence is profound.
Much credit goes to the actors, who create neither heroes nor villains but flawed, flawed people struggling with emotions that overwhelm them. John Toon's atmospheric cinematography and Paul Maxwell's unhurried editing add to the slow, excruciating build to a tragedy. The only negative is the constant use of rock/pop songs on the soundtrack, which distracts from the mood and wary anticipation of a calamity to come.
RAIN
Fireworks Pictures
Rose Road and Communicado
Credits:
Writer-director Christine Jeffs
Based on the novel by: Kirsty Gunn
Producer: Philippa Campbell
Executive producer: Robin Scholes
Director of photography: John Toon
Music: Neil Finn, Edmund McWilliams
Costume designer: Kirsty Cameron
Editor: Paul Maxwell
Cast:
Janey: Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki
Kate: Sarah Peirse
Cady: Marton Csokas
Ed: Alistair Browning
Jim: Aaron Murphy.
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 92 minutes...
"Rain" could evolve into a must-see in North American art houses. Its major impediment is the unfortunate number of films, both past and present, with the exact same title. While "Rain" is based on a novel by the same name, filmmakers should take more care to select distinctive titles that will eliminate audience confusion.
Anyway, this "Rain" takes place in 1972 on a languid, sparsely populated bay on the east coast of New Zealand, where a family rents a seaside cottage for the long, hot summer. While the film's narrator is the family's 13-year-old daughter Janey (Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki), in the early throes of exploring the reach and strength of her sexuality, the point of view is not entirely hers.
Jeffs, who adapted Gunn's story, observes things Janey cannot always see or fully understand: the dissolution of her parents' marriage into booze and late-night parties, her mom's (Sarah Peirse) boredom and her dad's (Alistair Browning) inadequacy in dealing with this and, finally, her mom's attraction to a drifter photographer (Marton Csokas) who invites the family to go fishing on his boat.
Janey's closest and constant companion is her kid brother Jim (Aaron Murphy), a wee lad to whom life at the beach is still fun and games. As one indolent day turns into a boozy night followed by another indolent day with hangovers for the adults and restlessness for the children, life slowly oozes out of the family's core. It's almost imperceptible, but it's there, mostly unspoken, and no one knows how to fix the leak.
This is a film of atmosphere and ominous foreboding. You're never certain where the film is going, which is a refreshing change from most movies, whose road maps are clearly marked in advance.
It is Janey's sexuality that drives the movie. Dismissive of a boy her own age, who comes by to court her in a manner that is almost old-fashioned, she becomes, in a sense, her mom's rival for the affections of the nonchalant drifter. When the film finally reaches its climax, the sense of loss of innocence is profound.
Much credit goes to the actors, who create neither heroes nor villains but flawed, flawed people struggling with emotions that overwhelm them. John Toon's atmospheric cinematography and Paul Maxwell's unhurried editing add to the slow, excruciating build to a tragedy. The only negative is the constant use of rock/pop songs on the soundtrack, which distracts from the mood and wary anticipation of a calamity to come.
RAIN
Fireworks Pictures
Rose Road and Communicado
Credits:
Writer-director Christine Jeffs
Based on the novel by: Kirsty Gunn
Producer: Philippa Campbell
Executive producer: Robin Scholes
Director of photography: John Toon
Music: Neil Finn, Edmund McWilliams
Costume designer: Kirsty Cameron
Editor: Paul Maxwell
Cast:
Janey: Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki
Kate: Sarah Peirse
Cady: Marton Csokas
Ed: Alistair Browning
Jim: Aaron Murphy.
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 92 minutes...
- 4/27/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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